Studio: international art (43.1908)

An April Holiday

with the confidence of children in the ultimate
loving-kindness of Mother Nature. March dust
had followed the mud of February; the wind
howled and swept the high roads; but overhead
at least the skies were fair, and so a certain little
band of Art Students, greatly daring, hatched a
plan.

“By all the laws of the almanac the Winter is
over ; let us shoulder our painting-kit and go forth,
let us celebrate the advent of the jocund Spring,
if not with garlands and dances, at least with the
brightest hues of our palette.” “You are filled with
the spirit of Folly,” said pessimist listeners; “look
at the weather.” “ The time of the singing of
birds is come,” quoted the eldest and most invinci-
ble of the optimists, “or, if it hasn’t, it ought to.”
“I know of a valley where the sun is held all day
in a cup of golden gorse; where the blackthorn
and the wild plum already begin to whiten, and the
primroses have adventured forth. Although the
winds may shriek over the uplands, so that the
trees cannot stand before them, but crouch low,
stunted and dwarf-like, in that valley immemorial
elms have grown straight and strong; above, in their
lofty security, the talkative rooks look down on
what was once a noble house. Picturesque in
its decay, it offers sheltered nooks where the
painter may unfurl his kit; in the primrose lanes
there are bright-eyed little rustics ready enough to
pose; and orchards where the white pear bloom
competes with the white of the narcissus.” “ Show
us your valley,” cried the Art Students in chorus,
shivering but enthusiastic.

“But what is to become
of us when the rain comes
down, as it happens to
be doing at present ? ”

“He who will not brave
a wet coat for the love of
Art is not worth much,”
quoth the Optimist-in-
chief. “ Besides, a spirit
of gentle hospitality lingers
still in that valley. She
did not unfold her wings
and fly away, after the
departed lords of the
manor, but found an abid-
ing place among the tillers
of the land. They will not
deny us if.we seek shel-
ter from sudden storms.

There are spacious barns
and granaries far over-
192

topping the low-roofed homesteads. In them we
shall find cobwebby corners, dear to the etcher ;
effects of light on the dusty picturesque impedi-
menta of farming gear ; material enough and to
spare for brush and for imagination.” “Let us up
and be doing,” chorused the Students.

So it came about that one bright but windy after-
noon in late March, a quaint caravan might have
been seen on a country road, the road that winds
over hill and dale to the westernmost shore. Ahead
were the eager votaries of Ait, scudding fast on
free-wheels impelled by the east wind. Then the
baggage-waggon piled high with easels, canvases
and paint-boxes ; materials for the commissariat,
for our daily lives henceforth were to be lived in
the wild. More rugged grows the landscape as the
further winds the road to the west; stretching across
moorland wastes, dipping under hills furze-clad, or
mapped into irregular fields. One speculates on their
arbitrary divisions, and their low granite walls are
eloquent of a wilder age, when each man tore his
acre of earth from the rough bosom of the waste,
and tilled, and planted, and reaped. Dull fore-
boding fell away from us with the exhilaration of
speed; behind us was the wind, and before us the
westering sun, and the afternoon light on the hills.

It was a light-hearted crew that wheeled into the
old avenue with its over-arching elms, voluble as
the rook families themselves, who took note of us
with laughter and much chaff as we proceeded to
unload our promiscuous belongings in the farm-
yard ; the good-natured farmer and his men looking

THE BARN DOOR

BY ERNEST PROCTER